While I would agree the mathematical treatment in this first edition is remarkable, I would not concur that Heaviside (including Tait and Hertz) did academics a favour by truncating Maxwell's expressions into what we now called Vector forms.

These two volume classic textbooks are a very remarkable mathematical depiction of the subject. However, the mathematics is based on quaternions. Oliver Heaviside improvized the mathematics in these two textbooks involved vectors. In my opinion, it will be more complete and logically helpful if the three volume "Electromagnetic Theory by Heaviside" could be added.